Carnival

The communal celebration of Carnival, particularly the religious celebration in Catholic countries, occurs just before Lent. The carnival Mexican holiday is quite an important date in the Mexican holiday calendar as Mexico is a largely Catholic country. Since archaic times, carnivals of Latin American holidays, Mexican American holidays and European holidays have been associated with parades, masquerades, pageants and other forms of Carnival elation and debauchery that had their origins in pre-Christian heathen rites, especially those fertility rites that accompanied the coming of spring and the vegetative cycle. The carnival spirit in Mexico ushers in an array of parades of masked dancers, carnival games and carnival costumes that pour through the streets of Tepoztlan, Huejotzingo, Chamula, Veracruz, Cozumel and Mazatlan. In Veracruz, in Cozume's San Miguel and in Mazatlan, the carnival glory and carnival triumph can be likened to the New Orleans Mardi Gras in which parades of dancers are followed by marching bands and booming sound systems. Not all Mexican carnivals take after the Caribbean model, however. In certain regions of Mexico, pre-Hispanic holiday traditions have mingled with Catholic feast days to create a different sense of Carnival valor.